As India undergoes fast digital transformation, the alternatives are immense — however so are the dangers. Cybercrime losses exceeded ₹1,750 crore within the first 4 months of 2024 alone. [1] Whereas India requires a minimum of a million cybersecurity professionals, its present workforce is lower than half that quantity. [2] This makes it paramount not solely to equip residents with data on the right way to keep secure on-line, but in addition to coach the cybersecurity workforce India urgently wants.
That is the problem that sits on the coronary heart of the partnership between Cisco and the NIIT Basis, an India-based nonprofit centered on schooling and ability improvement that helped us positively impression 50 million folks in India. Since 2008, Cisco and NIIT Basis have partnered on initiatives that bridge the digital divide, together with numerous coaching applications for India’s youth. Constructing on this sturdy basis, in 2022, we launched a flagship initiative: Cyber Suraksha.
A multipronged strategy to cyber security
Aligned with Cisco’s technique to leverage expertise and partnerships to deal with vital wants in schooling and financial improvement, the Cyber Suraksha program goals to construct widespread data on cyber security whereas coaching younger folks for cybersecurity careers. This system — designed as a complete response to India’s escalating cybersecurity challenges — is structured round three key programs:
- Cyber Consciousness: A 20-hour foundational program for ages 13+ masking private on-line security and safety towards cyber threats like id theft, cyber-bullying, and fraud.
- Cyber Sensible: A complicated course for faculty college students all in favour of cybersecurity and getting ready for careers within the discipline.
- Cyber Workforce: A complete, employability-focused program designed to coach people for roles within the cybersecurity business.
Cyber Suraksha’s impression by the numbers
Over a three-year grant interval (2022–2025), Cyber Suraksha pursued an formidable imaginative and prescient: coaching a million people throughout India in cybersecurity abilities and consciousness. By March 2025, this system had surpassed that purpose throughout its three programs, demonstrating the curriculum’s effectiveness and the widespread demand for accessible digital security coaching.
This system’s impression has been each wide-reaching and inclusive, spanning communities usually left behind in tech schooling. With greater than 40% feminine participation, this system helps to reshape a discipline the place ladies are sometimes underrepresented globally. Moreover, individuals who discovered employment after finishing this system noticed their household incomes rise by a mean of 39% over a three-year interval, highlighting how digital abilities and cybersecurity coaching can straight contribute to financial mobility.
Actual lives, actual impression: Tales from the Cyber Suraksha program
Whereas the statistics inform a strong story of scale, the true impression of Cyber Suraksha is finest understood via the lives it has remodeled. Rehana, a 31-year-old trans lady and group advocate from New Delhi, seen that her group was significantly prone to cyber threats on account of a lack of expertise. “The Cyber Suraksha initiative empowered me to acknowledge and reply to cyber threats,” she defined. “I developed important cybersecurity abilities via mentorship and sensible expertise.” In the present day, she’s obsessed with elevating cyber consciousness and works to assist her group defend themselves on-line.
Private experiences with cyber fraud motivated each Apurba, a 25-year-old laptop software graduate from rural West Bengal, and Anand, a 50-year-old yoga instructor from Delhi, to enroll in Cyber Suraksha. Each had been focused by on-line scams, from unauthorized financial institution transactions to e-mail breaches. “The programs supplied me with superior abilities and a powerful theoretical basis,” Apurba shared, crediting this system with getting ready him for his profession. For Anand, the coaching supplied one thing equally precious: “The Cyber Suraksha program drastically enhanced my understanding of fraud ways and the right way to forestall them.” In the present day, Apurba works in cybersecurity whereas Anand actively raises consciousness about cyber security in his group.
The partnerships advancing cybersecurity in India
Cyber Suraksha’s success displays the power of the partnership between Cisco and NIIT Basis. Collectively, we’ve reached underserved populations — from rural youth to older adults — equipping them with abilities that open pathways to sustainable livelihoods.
Reaching this scale required partnerships at each degree: greater than 500 schools, 129 NGOs, and three,000+ authorities colleges throughout 27 states and 5 union territories supplied grassroots entry and native perception. Know-how platforms for venture administration, impression monitoring, and AI-driven studying enabled this system to adapt shortly and personalize content material. NIIT Basis’s group networks mixed with Cisco’s expertise infrastructure created a depth of impression that neither of us might have achieved alone.
Wanting forward towards a digitally resilient future
The journey doesn’t finish right here. Constructing on Cyber Suraksha’s success, Cisco and NIIT Basis are launching Cyber Suraksha Plus to achieve an extra 2.7 million folks over the following three years. The initiative will preserve its give attention to reaching all learners, aiming for 40% feminine participation, and can develop into synthetic intelligence coaching alongside cybersecurity.
By way of a number of supply channels — instructor-led classes, train-the-trainer fashions, and self-paced platforms just like the Study@NIITFoundation app — this system will lengthen its attain into much more distant areas and weak communities. Strengthened partnerships with authorities establishments, schools, and grassroots organizations will allow sustainable, cost-effective supply at scale.
The tales of Rehana, Apurba, Anand, and a million others show what’s doable when expertise, schooling, and partnership come collectively. As Cisco and NIIT Basis proceed this work, we’re not simply constructing cybersecurity abilities — we’re creating pathways to alternative and contributing to a safer digital future for all of India.
